Back in April, when the Internet Archive and two Berkmanites, Harry Lewis and Lewis Hyde, wrote letters asking for leave to file motions to intervene in the Google Book Search case, the District Court treated their letters as actual motions to intervene and denied them in a single paragraph. The Internet Archive went silent, but the two Lewises filed a notice of appeal to the Second Circuit. Presumably, they planned to litigate their right to be in the case.

I see today that the appeal has been withdrawn. One interpretation is that they’re giving up and will sit this one out. Another is that they plan to file a full motion to intervene, rather than just the preliminary letter they submitted last time. If I had to guess, I’d guess the latter.